05/30/2020 - 19:51
- Clarín.com
- Dresses
Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, visible faces of the NASA mission and SpaceX, company of the tycoon Elon Musk, managed to take off this Saturday aboard the Falcon 9 rocket from Florida and made history . But they were not alone : they were accompanied by a colorful toy dinosaur .
The curious doll traveled seated and with the seat belt on , as if it were just another crew member . And in a moment, when gravity reached zero , it began to float on the ship and was captured by the camera.
Canadian geophysicist Mika McKinnon saw the toy in the official broadcast on Wednesday, May 27, the original day of the rocket launch, and identified its origin.
Two humans (and one dinosaur) went to space today #SpaceX pic.twitter.com/U4CbHJShkw
- Brian Bosché (@BrianPBosche) May 30, 2020" I am pretty sure that is the (model) TY Flippables Tremor Dinosaur , 6 inches tall (15 cm) Sequin reversible blue / pink. In If so, it is a stuffed not manufactured anymore , and it can only be purchased in the resale market, "he wrote on Twitter.
Sale. In the official SpaceX store. The link is no longer available. (Photo capture).
According to the page The Verge , in the official SpaceX store the dinosaur appeared for sale, after takeoff, with the name " Demo 2 Dinosaur Plush Toy " and a price of $ 25 , although the link is no longer available . The stuffed toy is still sold on Amazon in Mexico and some other online stores.
According to People magazine , it is not the first time that they send a stuffed animal into space. In 2019 , Elon Musk clarified that a stuffed toy from Earth flew in a Crew Dragon ship test in March.
"Added a super high tech zero gravity indicator just before launch!" , he tweeted back then. Accordingly, it is understood that they used it as a humorous way to let astronauts, subject to the seat, know that they are already in zero gravity .
Toy. Astronaut Karen Nyberg, Hurley's wife, did it for her son in 2013. (Photo: @NASAWonderWoman)
Another "dinosaur" was already in space before. In 2013 , astronaut Karen Nyberg , wife of Doug Hurley, created a toy dinosaur for her son from scraps of fabric from the lining of food containers and a T-shirt while on the International Space Station (ISS). .
The Crew Dragon capsule is slated to dock with the ISS about 19 hours after takeoff, at 2:29 PM GMT on Sunday. Behnken, 49 , and Hurley, 53 , former military pilots who joined the space agency in 2000 , will join their residents, astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner .
The length of stay for US astronauts on the Station has not yet been determined, but they could remain 114 days (16 weeks) in space. Bridenstine, the NASA administrator, indicated that they could return to Earth in early August .
With information from AFP
